Tuesday, May 27, 2014

I’ve just read two books about
sex (Sex at Dawn, and Perv), and the same fascinating study,
about something called “erotic plasticity,” was mentioned in both.

In 2005 psychologist Meredith Chivers
set up an experiment where she showed a variety of sexual videos to heterosexual
and homosexual men and women. The videos depicted a wide variety of activities
covering various sexual combinations: male/female, male/male, female/female,
female alone, and man alone. At the end, just for the hell of it, she threw in
one of bonobos mating. The subject’s genitals were wired to measure blood flow
(an accurate indicator of arousal) and the subjects also indicated how turned
on they felt with a keypad.

Men were consistent—if they were
heterosexual the naked women turned them on but the men did not, and if homosexual,
vice versa. The bonobos didn’t turn any of the men on. In addition, the men’s
reported feelings matched their genital blood flow.

But women responded genitally to
everything—even the bonobos! However,
they didn’t report being turned on to everything. They only acknowledged
arousal about a subset of videos.

This is interesting enough, but
there’s more. It would be easy to conclude that this is just a strange human
quirk. But another study, done in 2001 with goats and sheep, shows the same erotic
plasticity difference between males and females.

Monday, May 19, 2014

Recently someone asked me to
describe my spiritual path. First, I dislike the word “spiritual,” because I’m
interested in being a more loving and caring person; I have less interest in
connection with the divine. I think of my path as being more about
consciousness; becoming more aware every day.

The basic components of my path
are: acceptance, love, humility, compassion, honesty, and gratitude. For fun I
thought I’d make an acronym to remember them better, and the best sounding word
I could come up with is GLACH2.

Gratitude: This has been a tough
one for me. I seem to expect a lot from the world, and since my life hasn’t
been perfect (according to my expectations) for most of my life I couldn’t see many
reasons for gratitude. However, the foundation of my path is this concept: reality,
as it is currently manifested in this moment, is perfect. This moment is whole
and complete. The more I experience this, the more I feel gratitude for the way
it is (no matter how it is!). I feel like I have a lot more to learn about
gratitude, and perhaps that is why it ended up first in the acronym, to keep it
present in my awareness.

Love: My definition of love is “the
experience of unconditional acceptance of what is.” Loving what is means I am
seeing the perfection of this moment of now; I’m not bitching about it and
wanting it to be some other way. Loving what is dissolves the boundaries
between the world and me.

Acceptance: My ego-identity fights
to survive just like an animal, with fight/flight behavior. It seems like the
world is almost never quite right, so I have to either battle to get my way or
run from what’s happening. There is an option, and that is to face the world as it is, to bow to the
reality of the now. This doesn’t mean I become a doormat, it just means I’m not
rejecting what already is.

Compassion: Another foundational
premise of my path is that everyone is insane (We are ALL Innocent by Reason of
Insanity). Crazy people do crazy things. In addition, free will is a cruel
myth. People don’t choose to do mean, cruel, or hurtful things, they are driven
to do them by their mental programming. The only sane response is compassion: seeing
another’s limitations without value judgment.

Honesty: I used to hide myself
because I believed that if people knew what I was really like, what I really
thought, they’d start laughing or run screaming. But then I felt like a fraud,
and hated myself for my weakness. I began seeing how I was hurting people by
not telling the truth. As a simple example, say you’re about to give an
important presentation. I notice you have a piece of food between your teeth. It’s
a little embarrassing for me to tell you about it, but wouldn’t not telling you the truth hurt you?

Humility: This is another one
that has caused me some trouble. I used to confuse humility with humiliation. I
couldn’t understand why anyone could want to be humble, it sounded weak and
pitiful to me. I tried hard to never make mistakes and to do everything
perfectly, because I believed that only if I was perfect would people like me.
I couldn’t laugh at myself when I made a mistake. I’ve come to realize that
humility is extremely powerful because it’s just recognizing the truth of my
limitations.

Every moment is an opportunity
to experience/express GLACH2. Every moment I'm not
experiencing/expressing GLACH2is an opportunity to learn
about what I'm still attached to, afraid of, or angry about.

About Me

I'm a philosopher, writer, videographer, and entrepreneur. In 2013 I've released a new book, "We Are ALL Innocent by Reason of Insanity." I'm the co-author with my husband Arthur Hancock of "The Game of God: Recovering Your True Identity.